Posted
by
Soulskillon Thursday October 31, 2013 @02:39PM
from the lots-of-corporate-slashing-and-burning-behind-the-scenes dept.

In this video, we talk with author David Craddock about his investigation into the early days of game studio Blizzard for his new book, Stay Awhile and Listen. He's joined by Dave Brevik and Max Schaefer, two of the co-founders of Blizzard North. They talk about some of the ways in which making video games was different back in the early '90s -- and the ways it's similar to making games today. They also discuss the importance of having lively debates, and how one of those arguments led to Diablo being a real-time action game, instead of being turn-based. (This is the first half of an extended interview -- part 2 will be available on Monday.

Jeff
Boehm: Alright.
Gentlemen, I am not sure if you are familiar with how our Slashdot
interviews work, but typically what we do is, we ask for questions
from the community, which we’ve done, and then we take the best
of those, and sometimes mix in a few of our own, which we will be
doing today, and then put them to you guys to answer.

David
Craddock: Sounds good.

Jeff:
So if everybody is ready, I would like to start off and just ask,
this is more for David C, first of all, David Brevik, can I call you
Dave?

David
Brevik: Sure.

Jeff:
Okay, so I will call you Dave. And David Craddock, I will call you
David. Because we don’t get confused. So it seems that one of
the early things about Blizzard is that, particularly I am thinking
of Blizzard Entertainment, it started as a way to port games for
various consoles, various different things, and then they really hit
upon Warcraft as the one that they wanted to get started with. Now is
that, I know from reading about project Condor that that was kind of
a watershed moment – was it the same with Blizzard
Entertainment?

David
Craddock: Yeah it was. Allen Adham had a
dream of starting his own game company, and one of the ways you got
started in those days, and David, Max might be able to attest that
how the developers are doing that today, trying to get your AAA
company off the ground but you signed up for it, games on one system
to other systems. And that was typically pretty well _____1:52
but you could ramp up enough money to start building a team, maybe
stopping some way to start working on your own projects. And Allen
actually grew up on the BBS scene, bulletin boards with Brian Fargo,
and by the time Allen was ready to start his company, Brian was
already running Interplay and was able to give him his first new
contracts and actually supported him when he said, “Hey, I want
to do my own thing. I want to do a PC real time strategy game.”
And that was of course Warcraft.

Jeff:
So Dave and Max, you guys went through that as well, you went from
just the three of you, you two plus Erich, up to five and then up to
seven. I was curious, at what point did you guys feel like you were a
legitimate complete gaming company?

Max
Schaefer: I don’t know if we ever
played god there. I would like to say we did what we had to do at
the beginning of the company, we didn’t do ports necessarily,
but we did quite a few Game Boy and Game Gear little games that
qualify as cutting your teeth in this, but I think that one of the
things that went well for us was we timed things fairly well. I think
when we started Diablo was right about when we were ready and able to
do something completely on our own, a PC game.

Jeff:
Dave, is that how you feel about that as well?

David
Brevik: Yeah, I think we had different jobs
at different video game companies before starting Condor and through
those connections we were able to get contracts to do some like Max
was saying Game Boy and Game Gear and Sega Genesis games. And those
connections really allowed us to cut our teeth and develop a staff
and get some training and finish games. And to go through the actual
exercise of making something and finishing it, which is a difficult
thing to do. And then getting it published and stuff, and go through
that routine and develop some technology that we could use not only
just in this game but other games. It also gave us the time to flesh
out ideas and make the best one rise to the top which was Diablo.

Jeff:
How do you think that contrasts with development studios growing up
today, if there is a similar group of three, or five, or seven guys
who want to meet together and make video games, do you think they are
having an easier time or a tougher time?

Max
Schaefer: Well, now they make mobile games.
So it is actually not the same. Sorry I have lost video, my laptop
crashed so I am back on non-video.

Jeff:
Okay.

David
Brevik: So yeah I agree with Max. I think
that it is in some ways, it is easier than ever to make a game and
publish it on your own, which wasn’t really even an option
before in the days when we started. You really needed a publisher
because it was all brick and mortar stores, so unless you get a
distribution network, it was really really difficult to get your
stuff published. So you really needed a publisher. Now, you just
store up on the internet and anybody can download it. Which is a lot
different than it used to be. So in a lot of ways it is a lot easier
but it’s also a lot harder, because games are harder to make,
there is more expected from them, it costs a lot of money to make
them, they are technically more difficult to make. There are all
sorts of things that make it more difficult today than it did back
then. But then things like, oh you put it on, it is on the iTunes
store and you just need to download it and a couple of guys made on
iTunes or if anyone made a mobile game and millions of people are
going to download it and play it. So in a lot of ways it is easier.
But it is very competitive, and if you want to make something AAA
super high quality, it takes a lot of time.

Jeff:
Several of our users had questions for you guys specifically as
industry veterans, what you would recommend for breaking into the
games industry today?

David
Brevik: I will say the same thing I always
said, which is: If you are passionate about doing something, do it.
It is a very simple formula. Figure out a way to make games. Bring
some friends, even online or whatever. If you are a programmer, find
an artist; if you are an artist, find a programmer - you can team up
and actually make something. That’s really the best way that
you are going to be able to break into the video game industry. It is
to show off experience to somebody that says, hey, this is a
you will learn so much going through that process alone that you will
develop your skills and whatnot if you are really passionate about
it. It is not really even work, it is just fun, if it is something
you are passionate about. And if you really desire to do it, just get
up and do it. It is like any other craft, if you want to write books
like David, then write books - it is the same kind of thing. If you
want to make video games, make a video game.

Max
Schaefer: Yeah, one of the cool things about
the video game industry, is you don’t need a factory, you don’t
need any special machinery - you need the computer, that you probably
already have sitting at the desk in the living room. And all you need
to do is put your time into it. Like Dave says, just make it. Don’t
think of it as getting a job, you are probably not going to get paid
before you’ve done anything. But just do it, like he says. And
there are plenty of online resources - there are game engines that
are available now, that can give you a headstart. But yeah, just do
it. Do it before you don’t think of it as breaking into
the industry, you know, break yourself, break yourself in.

David
Craddock: Now that’s one common thread
I picked up in talking to a lot of you guys who would send, we would
get applications from students who would say, “Well, here’s
what I did in my senior year”, but you would say, well, okay,
but what did you do? What was your project? I mean this is a group
project, how do we know what you did? Where is your initiative, you
were just making games after class, nobody told you, you had to, or
you would fail the course.

Jeff:
Alright. That should give some helpful advice to budding game
developers in the audience.

Max
Schaefer: The other thing is to identify
what it is that you like to do. Are you an artist? Are you a
programmer? Are you a sound guy? There are so many specialties now
in the games business that there are very few people who do
everything. And a lot of people have a certain predilection for one
area – figure out how that applies in the video game industry.
Learn the skills that those people do. That’s again something
you can do on your own. But it is so specialized now, it is not like
when Dave and I started out where everyone did everything.

Jeff:
That makes a lot of sense. Another thing that has always struck me
about Blizzard and particularly reading about your early design
problems, is that both you guys and Blizzard Entertainment seem to
have an enjoyment of arguing about the various design decisions, this
arguing on to death. I was wondering, do you consider that a bug of
the designing process? Or a feature? And how do you corral that into
something useful?

David
Brevik: It is not a bug today. It is true
even today that the best ideas rise to the top. And so if you want
it making a game is a group effort. There isn’t a
single individual that’s responsible for a game. Or there is,
very rarely; 99% of games it is group effort. So getting input from
other people is not a sign of weakness, but it is a sign of strength.
Coordinating and working together maybe a little loudly, that’s
first words, is a method of making sure that the best possible
design. The best possible game comes out of all this hard work. And
so, I think that it is definitely not only necessary but the words
used can be gentle or not but the actual process of debating what the
best game design is and what the best features are, in the end, I
fully believe that the best ideas rise to the top.

Max
Schaefer: Yeah, but for the best ideas to
rise to the top, they have to be articulated and massaged, and tested
and gone over. That involves like Dave says, a little bit of arguing.
But you know, arguing shows passion and it shows people with ideas.
So I came to enjoy those. I still enjoy those arguments. I had them
yesterday.

Jeff:
David, did you find a similar attitude as you progressed through
Blizzard’s life, that debate was always lively and welcome?

David
Craddock: Absolutely. I think that gave rise
to some of today’s core tenets of Diablo and Warcraft. I mean,
there was a push and pull over converting Diablo to real time over
the way we would select and execute spells in the game. I know that
in Blizzard Entertainment when we working on Warcraft II the debate
arose whether or not to use roads in it. One you had to build roads,
all these lines going through the pastures and you can only put
buildings adjacent to roads. And one thing Allen Adham said was well
we can’t just let them build them anywhere. Because what if
someone were to build a barracks right outside of your base. And they
said, well then that will be cool, because that is a strategy. And so
there was just this constant back and forth, I think at both, I mean
obviously given all the memorabilia, I am behind today, the games are
well known for the best of years that it was at the top.

Jeff:
It seems that way. Now that you mention that, when I read about how
Diablo was originally turn-based, that really surprised me. I was not
aware of that, growing up playing the game just from the side of it,
it was really it struck me as odd. Not because it is
necessarily a bad idea just because it is so antithetical to what I
have always known about Diablo. David, I really enjoyed reading the
explanation that you gave about sitting down over the course of a
weekend and basically turning it from turn-based to real time - would
you walk us through what that was like? And how the feel of the game
contrasted between those two states?

David
Brevik: Sure. I think that it was a very
lively debate for an extended period of time, and eventually you
know, we went with real time. But originally like you said, it
started out as Diablo was turn-based and it was based on a game some
games that I played at college on Unix machines that were Rogue like
games _____13:44 in
particular and you were the @ symbol attacking the letter K and you
know, I really loved those games.

And
those games were turn-based, so I didn’t ever it was
basically this is going to be a graphic update of those kinds of
games. And you have to realize that at that time, not only were RPGs
dead, but also there were no real time RPGs, RPGs of real time never
really mixed together. So when the idea came up, and it was destined
just like taking strategy games and making them real time, they said,
oh, why don’t we take the RPG and make it real time? Like are
you out of your mind? What are you talking about? That ruins
everything.

So
that debate went on for a while. And then eventually I thought that
was going to take a long time and we were a little strapped for cash
and so we managed to persuade them to give us a little extra time and
money to make sure that we can change this to real time but they
would take more development time to do this. And I can really
remember it vividly still even today. One of my crowning moments in
my life really is the moment that you say okay well, I am going to
get to work on this, I am going to change it to real time and see
what it’s like to knock it up and see what was _____15:20.

And
then I can still remember taking that cursor which was a giant block
that was modeled after XCom at that time, so whacking this monster
and having the guy walk over there and swing his sword and strike
down the skeleton. It was like: Yes! It was glorious. The skies
parted and the rays of sun came down. And the angels went oooooh. I
was like God I can’t believe how good this is. And so I knew
right away after we added this, I thought that was going to take me a
long time. I was able to code it in a few hours and for us to get it
up and running. Instantly I knew that it was the right decision in
the right time.

David
Craddock: I have to tell you Dave, I remember
you telling me that story during one of our conversations at
Starbucks. And I was so excited to write it, like that was almost
like okay I am going to write this one down, because I have to
structure this scene plain in the middle and I guess I have to put
words around it. I had the same reaction like, yes, when I finished
that part, because I got a lot of feedback. That was the end of the
chapter that I released for free last fall and it went over so well.
It is definitely one of my favorite stories from talking to you and
researching the book as a whole.

David
Brevik: Thanks.

Max
Schaefer: That’s one of my favorite
stories too. That was when we knew everything was going to be okay.

Jeff:
So it was also interesting that you brought up Rogue like games. One
of our readers actually specifically mentioned those and NetHack in
particular and wanted to know what parts of those games that you
specifically like, that you felt were really fun and wanted to bring
over? And which elements did you feel like maybe they were a little
too tedious and you wanted to do away with?

David
Brevik: Max, you want to take that?

Max
Schaefer: I am sorry, ask the question one
more time.

Jeff:
What Rogue and NetHack, games like that, they kind of provided some
of the inspiration for Diablo; how did you guys decide which features
and elements were good and interesting and you wanted to bring those
over, versus the ones that were maybe a little tedious and you wanted
to leave behind?

Max
Schaefer: Well, I think the big thing is it
is not really necessarily what was tedious and what wasn’t, but
we had the capability with the technology all of a sudden to bring
these things to a much more graphical glory. You know, we were 3D
modeling and animating characters at a time when that wasn’t
really happening very much. Especially with RPGs, especially with
real time RPGs. So we wanted to we almost video edit, for us it was
like, it was closer to making a movie of what we had played all these
years as text and rudimentary graphics, you know a lot of 2D stuff
and like giving it a life that it didn’t have before through
visual mediums, and sound and music. Just really bringing them up to
date in that sense. I think from my perspective, we wanted to capture
the fun of those games and a lot of those dynamics but in a much more
modern way.

David
Brevik: Yeah, I agree and also feel like let
me give this, it is a good example of exactly what Max is talking
about, that I can think of, which is that, the items in a lot of
those games would have weights, like how much you could carry which
is based on the weight that the item had, right. And you had to like
add up how much you were and if you were overweight, it became
slower, and it is like _____19:03
and it was kind of tough. Anyway we wanted take that and wanted to
bring that concept but we wanted to present it in a graphic way. And
that’s how we came up with our demon for instance, and having
larger objects which would take more weight take up more space, and
smaller objects took up smaller amounts of space.

And
so that is just one way in which we kind of changed it from this
nerdy math oriented with fractions kind of mentality, we did use in a
computer lab, versus now you can visually represent that, see that,
and it becomes more of a general audience thing that people can
grasp. So I think that there is a lot of cases like that where we
took what was maybe a little bit a slog before and added graphic
elements to it to bring it forward. But we kept a lot of that, we
kept weight in a lot of way, and it was an important part of the
game. Some of the things that we got rid of and we actually debated
were things like whether or not the character should eat, and things
like that. Food was very common back then, and it was like, oh my guy
has died of hunger or whatever you know. We didn’t want to go
down that path. There were a few things like that a few minor things
like that we changed.

Max
Schaefer: Yeah, one of the tedious things was
your character setup too. One of our goals was that when you turn on
the game, within about a minute or two, you’d be getting a
skeleton as opposed to the old school RPGs where you would set up
your character for a long time and he would be rolling dice to get
there, various stats that didn’t really have any knowledge of
what they meant, plus you have played a lot already, and so we wanted
to kind of dispense with that, just get you into this game and teach
you these mechanics and layer these mechanics after you are getting
skeletons. The time to hit a skeleton was incredibly important.

PR departments can pay cash monies to help disseminate positive stories to boost the reputation of companies. I can't present evidence that happened, but it's certainly not out of character for slashdot these days.

Cool, thanks. As to the transcript guy, MeTV has obviously been using computer voice recognition for their captions from the way the captions are mangled. Use the computer for the transcripts and have the transcript guy just edit that, it should be a lot faster and easier. When voice recognition gets better your transcript guy will have to do something else...

Seconded (thirded? Ninethid?). Videos are fine for animations that show how something works, or demonstrating something cool, like that Q8k guy that flew his rocket to the edge of space, but I'm visually oriented, not aurally oriented. I don't want talking heads, I'm literate. Give me the written word or STFU.

You ancien regime reactionaries need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. You're lucky we don't require you to log in by Facebook to view the content. Don't have a Facebook account, you say? You're suspicious by default.

Yup, browsing at work during my break, but we use a non-noise environment. (headphones not allowed.)Waiting on teh transcript...What's the first thing I see (because I can;t hear it.) is an ad for someone...Waiting on the transcript...On any youtube video, if an ad shows up, I close it.Waiting on the transcript...I don;t watch a lot of video online.Waiting for the transcript...